Monday, September 24, 2007

For Your Enjoyment

-An insightful, if somewhat gloomy look at the current English-language literary scene in the New Criterion....

-Pinback, my favorite band of the last few years, has a new album out....

-A site my brother will appreciate: a brave young critic sets out to view and review every single movie in the Criterion Collection. To judge by his review of Andrei Rublev (tops, probably, on my "All-Times Favorites" list), he's a smart and articulate critic.

1 comment:

Seb said...

I went all the way through that one shot of the bell and I didn't even mention what was, for me, the most beautiful sequence in the movie: Andrei Rublev's vision of the crucifixion. It's pretty traditional, with one exception. It's in Russia in the middle of winter.

I have to note, also, that the transitional shot from a rag twisting in the water to this scene of Golgotha is absolutely magical. When I first saw it, my jaw dropped; I had to back up the scene and re-watch the transition six or seven times before I was willing to let it alone. I'm still unsure how Tarkovsky pulled this off, but it hit me even harder than the rightly lauded bell shot.